[time-nuts] Downsizing dilemma, HP 3335A

Bob Camp kb8tq at n1k.org
Wed Nov 11 19:26:32 EST 2015


Hi

Well, if you sit down with a bunch of these people and talk to them, you find out some interesting things:

1) When the job postings go up, there aren’t many that ask about resistors and capacitors. They all ask about
firmware and processors.  The ratio is at least 10:1.

2) If you hold out for that job and go on the interview trip … surprise … it’s a sales job *selling* resistors or 
capacitors or something similar.That’s about a 4:1.

3) You hold out and keep on looking for that job. You land one. You start out all excited. A year later you look
around. Everybody else got a bump in pay at the end of the year. You ask and the answer is “they work on 
important stuff, you just do the easy stuff”.  I’ve heard that about 100% of the time (from both 
sides of the divide).  

Hmmmm …. so what choice would *you* make in that job market?  And yes, this is a (possibly biased) sample
across several dozen people a year over the last ten or so years. Some of them have kept in touch and I’ve
been able to follow their up’s and downs. Some work for the biggest of the big. Some work for the smallest of the
small. All of them are US based. 

Hmmm … so now how do you feel about “guiding” them to learn more about hardware …I *know* how I feel. 

Bob

> On Nov 11, 2015, at 6:26 PM, Rob Sherwood. <rob at nc0b.com> wrote:
> 
> The EE department at the University of Colorado has an enlightened professor.  
> 
> http://ecee.colorado.edu/faculty/popovic.html
> 
> Zoya required her students to not only get a ham license, but to build a Norcal 40A.  
> 
> http://ecee.colorado.edu/~ecen2420/Files/NorCal40A_Manual.pdf
> 
> 
> Most of the EE students had no idea what a resistor really was, let alone have any experience in soldering a resistor or capacitor on a PC board. One student stuffed the PC board, bent all the leads 90 degrees without cutting any of them off, and then in effect flow soldered the whole bottom of the PC board!
> 
> One wonders how EE grads today can actually get a job and be productive with so little hands-on experience.
> 
> Zoya belongs to the Boulder (Colorado) Amateur Radio Club, and our monthly meetings are in the EE department. It is too bad this is likely an unusual example of what happens on campuses today.  
> 
> Rob
> NC0B  
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On Behalf Of Pete Lancashire
> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 10:01 AM
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Downsizing dilemma, HP 3335A
> 
> 
> 
> I can understand the downsizing, someday it will happen to me. And where I live there is pretty much zero interest in anything electronic. The two local schools Portland State and Reed both have EE but the students done seem to have any interest in anything physical. they believe everything they need or have interest in can be simulated on a computer. I helped one of the PSU EE's one day, just finished his 2nd year, had an old Kenwood stereo distorted left output. He pretty much had no idea what to do, and when 'we' found the bad transistor, he didn't really know how to replace it.
> 
> BTW I know a Comp Sci graduate from PSU that can not write a program in any language that outputs "Hello World"
> 
> -pete Sad
> 
> On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 5:08 AM, paul swed <paulswedb at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Bill
>> It is unfortunate when the time comes to downsize. Even worse as time 
>> goes by at least for me each piece of test equipment from HP seems to 
>> get heavier. Must be dust building up inside. So as Ed says if you 
>> need that fine grain resolution you need them.
>> But you are also running into the age thing in the gear and that there 
>> are failures that creep in that are really a big problem to figure out.
>> Especially if some form of programmable logics involved.
>> Lastly sending them to the dumpster is the worst thing. But then the 
>> ole reality really sets in selling packing and shipping the stuff.
>> I guess the good news is that today there is a lot of replacement gear 
>> that will do reasonably well thats cheap respectively consumes little 
>> power and can easily be controlled by usb so you don't have to 
>> actually stop experimenting.
>> Regards
>> Paul
>> WB8TSL
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 2:32 AM, ed breya <eb at telight.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> You don't save these kinds of synthesizers for high frequency 
>>> coverage, but for their 10 to 11 digit frequency resolution. If you 
>>> anticipate needing that, then of course they should be kept and 
>>> fixed. The long-obsolete telecom standard connectors and ranges are 
>>> pretty much useless - sacrifice that one first if you need parts for the others.
>>> 
>>> If you need to justify keeping them, you can use them for practical 
>>> everyday applications. For example, each one can store a telephone
>> number -
>>> as long as the power doesn't go out.
>>> 
>>> Ed
>>> 
>>> 
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